Here I am outside Wakefield Prison where Harold Shipman
killed himself the night before his 58th birthday, hanging himself
with bed-sheets from the prison window. From 1975 to 1998 the doctor became one
of the world’s most prolific serial killers in recorded history. In court he
was found guilty of 15 murders but an inquiry after his death broadened rapidly
to span deaths of at least 218 people. How many people he killed is unknown. A
total of 459 people died while under his care.
He lived and
had his surgery near my home so when he was arrested aged 50 he appeared on
local news regularly. He was a good doctor, my sister took her kids to him and
patients said he engendered a calm, comforting bedside manner.
He could have continued murdering for
years but a local doctor and funeral director told the South Manchester coroner
there was a high death rate among Shipman's patients. He was arrested but
inexperienced police officers did not have enough evidence to bring charges.
The investigation was abandoned. Shipman didn’t stop and three more people
died.
His last
victim was Kathleen Grundy. Her daughter became suspicious when her mother’s
will excluded her children but left £386,000 (equivalent to £650k now) to
Shipman. The corpse was exhumed and morphine was found in the system. Also a
typewriter Shipman owned was the type used to type the will. The wheels of
investigation sped up and Shipman’s repeated pattern was soon uncovered: he
injected his victims with so much morphine they died quickly, he signed their
death certificates and then falsified medical records to indicate that they had
been in poor health. About 80% of his victims were women. His youngest victim
was a 41-year-old man.
Shipman's
motive for murder have never been established and he never told anyone. Some
people suggest he wanted to be caught because he knew he was getting out of
control and some said he wanted to “play God” and feel power over people’s
lives.
On 31st
January 2000 he was found guilty of killing 15 patients by lethal injections.
At the trial he denied his guilt and disputed the scientific evidence against
him. He never put forward any statements. The Shipman Inquiry concluded the doctor
had killed about 250 people. His wife, Primrose, was in denial about his
crimes.
So here I am
outside the prison on - can you believe it - Love Lane (I suppose this is apt
as I read prisons often survive long prison sentences through love or hate.) I’d
driven through Wakefield before but never passed the prison itself. I knew it
was an expansive prison but wrongly envisioned it to be set in a semi-rural
location. However the Sat-Nav suddenly said Love Land
was 300 metres away. I thought I’d entered the wrong address as I was stuck in
traffic on a main busy shopping street. I turned a corner and suddenly high sand-coloured
walls rose up and this was it - the entrance anyway.
Shoppers were
walking by carrying ASDA and Matalan bags as though the prison was a shopping
centre. On top of the walls stood many cameras. Over these walls Shipman killed
himself at 6:20am on 13th January 2004. At 8:10am he was pronounced dead.
Though The Sun ran a celebratory front page headline, "Ship Ship
hooray!" many of his victim’s families said they felt cheated and would
never find out why Shipman carried out the murders.
Shipman's
motive for suicide was never established but these reason have been presented:-
1. He wanted
to ensure his wife had financial security after he had been stripped of his NHS
pension (he reportedly told this to his probation officer.) Had Shipman lived
passed 60 his wife would not have been entitled to a full NHS pension.
2. He sensed
his wife Primrose had begun to suspect the overwhelming evidence was true and
the father of their children was one of history’s biggest murderers (she had
reportedly written him a letter asking him to tell her everything “no matter
what".)
3. He was
bored and there was nothing ahead but repeating decades.
I pulled up on
double yellow lines and turned off the engine. In my rear view mirror was the
main entrance to the prison, people in uniforms, a tall brown door for a van. I
had a coffee and a cheese and onion sandwich, a little disappointed there
weren’t grizzly-looking men at barred windows or two layers of barbed-wire
electrified fences.
There were no Little-Hitler
traffic wardens around so I had a sprint down a street or two taking photos.
Stupidly I did a pose of me holding a pretend remote control box for a drone.
Later I would add on a pretend drone dropping drugs into the prison grounds.
Bad move. I sprinted back to the car and was pulling the Sat-Nav out from beneath the seat when a prison van pulled up
beside me. It parked close by and at a slight angle so I would have to mount
the kerb to escape. Oh bum.
An oldish man in a uniform stepped out into the narrow space
between the vehicles. Double bum. I wound down my window but part of my brain
was thinking my little red love bug of a car could burn off that bulky van any
day.
“Hello Sunbeam?” he said dryly.
“Hello, how’re tricks?”
“Turn your engine off for a minute will you?
Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?” the man asked in a manner but
with a friendly twinkle in his eye.
My mind was spinning. He wore a uniform - was
he a prison employee or policeman? Did he have any power? I was on a double
yellow line but it was a public road.
“Just have a looking at the prison. I lived
near Harold Shipman - you know “Doctor Death” - and knew he’d killed hung
himself here.”
“Oh, wonderful. Where are you going?”
“I’m on the way to Scarborough for the
weekend but I’m interested in death stuff to do with infamous people, where
they’ve died or their graves. Bit of a geek.”
He didn’t look convinced.
Thank God the company had sent me a new
fancy Samsung Galaxy phone weeks before. I got it out and went on my website.
With a slightly shaking finger I whizzed up and down the screen showing people
whose graves I’ve visited. Shipman and Wakefield would be added to it.
He didn’t look convinced but I doubt he
could read the screen without glasses.
“Bit of a nerd about these things,” I said.
I was starting to think I might not get into the Harbour Lights restaurant in
The Grand Hotel at Scarborough tonight to stuff my gut.
“Is this your car?” I could hear his brain
spinning.
“Yes – doubt I’d nick a car like this.”
“Can I take your name?”
“John Halley – like the comet,” but he
didn’t write it down, “From Manchester.”
Bit of a pause.
“It’s probably best if you move on –
sharpish,” he said neutrally but he bore the demeanour of a man who was about
to retire soon and was happily pedalling along until the end day arrived.
“Okay, fair enough.”
“Someone might want to catch up with you
later if it’s classed as suspicious.”
What? What did “catch up with you” later
mean? Visit me at home? Were smugglers throwing things over the wall that
bigger a problem?
“Okay.”
“You’re lucky we’re outward bound or we
might have asked you to come in for a chat. Someone might if you stop here.”
I assumed they
were escorting a bad dude to a court or another prison and considered myself
issued with a mini “Get Out Of Jail” card. Thankfully the van drove off and I
just managed to get a quick photograph. That cheese and onion sandwich I’d
eaten only minutes ago seemed to be wanting to break free already.
I was relieved to see the van go…